"But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."
-Barack Obama

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Letter to Louisiana Representative Nick Lorusso

Good evening, Representative Lorusso,

I am writing to urge you to vote NO on SB 469 that should be coming to the Louisiana State House floor later this week.

While there has been plenty of talk about the lawsuit that has been brought by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - East, I find myself agreeing that this issue should be decided in a court of law rather than by retroactive legislative action. Not only do I believe in the non-partisan mission of the SLFPA that was created after the 2005 flood in order to keep politics out of flood protection, but I believe the attempts to undermine the SLFPA by the governor's office and legislature to be wrongheaded in politics and policy.

As a resident, worker, and taxpayer, I am less worried about lawyers fees than I am about oil companies sticking me and every other taxpayer with the bill for the messes they have made.
More than just the tax burden of private interests being shifted to the public dime, every year, the coast gets closer to the city of New Orleans, makes everyone in the coastal parishes more vulnerable to flooding and storm surge, and threatens to drive more Louisianans from their homes. If the oil companies are found to have caused even part of that, they should be held responsible for cleaning up their own messes. The place to find that out is in a court of law.

It is time to stand up for Louisiana being a state of laws instead of a state of special interests.
Please vote NO on SB 469.